Author

March— is it a Month of Madness or so it seems?

Somehow it seems like the month of March more than any other month is associated with madness or even crazy things. To the early Romans, March was the first month of their calendar and they named it Martius after Mars the Roman god of war. Maritus was the beginning of the season for war, so from a Roman perspective it was a dreadful month.

Trump’s March madness

If March seems to be a month of madness, then that madness was manifested on March 2nd when 19 year-old James Eric Davis, Jr., a Central Michigan University student, shot and killed his parents in his dormitory.

Since the time the Romans named March after their Roman God of war, it is noteworthy to point out that Roman history includes a significant event that’s linked to the month of March. That event is the Ides of March- March 15 — a date for religious observances that became notorious as the date of Julius Caesar assassination in 44 BC. Since then great, tragedies, wars, political assassinations, and catastrophes from act of God have occurred around the world during the month of March. These include the following:

March 20, 2003: A coalition of armed forces led by the US invaded Iraq. This war was ended in2006 and various sources estimated that it accounted for well over 100,000military personnel and civilians.

March 11, 2011: An undersea magnitude-9 earthquake shook the Japanese coast of Tōhoku, with the resultant tsunami wreaking havoc in cities.It killed nearly 20,000 people and disrupted the nuclear reactor at Fukushima,causing a massive power outage and a nuclear emergency.

So what is it about March that makes it seems like a month of madness? This madness does not include the big college sporting event known as March Madness when America’s colleges compete for basketball glory. If you are a fan of March Madness, it is hardly likely that you will consider it a crazy event. Unless of course we take into account all the crazy parties that involves heavy drinking that happens during the tournament.

The Ides of March could be seen as a time when political leaders (especially dictators) should be wary of a coup d’etat or even something politically crazy happening.The latter seems true for Pres. Trump whose presidency has been on a trajectory of chaos soon after his inauguration over a year ago.

To say that the past week for Trump’s presidency has been nothing but chaos would be an understatement. His communications director, the trusted and beautiful Hope Hicks tendered her resignation last week. This seems to have plunged Trump into a melancholic mood and an erratic behavior. Last week he announced a tariff on steel and aluminum causing the stock market to drop over 500 points. He followed up with his method of delivering important policy issues —tweets — that “trade wars are good and is easy to win.” Then there was more news from Special Counsel Robert Mueller that the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner had more problems related to his business deal to worry about.

Pictures of Donald Trump on TV showed him looking almost as if he was depressed. Perhaps the Hope Hicks departure was getting to him as one network Talk Show host described her as a “comforter’” to Trump. There is no doubt that Hope Hicks meant a lot to him. She is beautiful and we know Trump’s reputation with beautiful women. His reaction when Hicks offered her resignation was different for other staff members who resigned. We can only surmise that she offered him what the others could not offer —your guess is as good as mine.

Let’s hope that for the remainder of March there will be no more bad news from the White House. America has been through a rough first year with Trump’s presidency and another 3 years of the same will definitely not be good for the country and the world. As it stands there is no certainty that this will be the case as news from Mueller’s investigation could bring even greater chaos to the White House. Let’s hope that for the rest of March all we experience is a competitive March Madness of the NCAA tournament.

Note: This article has been republished after being published on March 5, 2018 but deleted due to problems with website.